Gossamer Wing Read Online Free PDF

love for the French. If it is within my power to help retrieve these plans and aid your colleagues in whatever it is they’re constructing, naturally I will do what I can to assist. But—”
    “It’s the part where you participate in a not-quite-sham marriage to my daughter that has you stymied, eh?” For a wonder, the man sounded as though he were no more put out about the prospect than he might be about a troublesome argument between two of his tenants, or a horse that hadn’t performed as well as expected at Saratoga. “Can’t say I’m thrilled about it either, but she knows her own mind. She has her mission to perform and her own reasons for going through with it regardless of the additional conditions Whitehall has set.”
    “May I ask about her particular reasons?”
    “I’m sure you may. Whether she answers you is no concern of mine.”
    “I see.” He didn’t quite, but Dexter got the impression Lord Darmont would not take well to being pushed on points he clearly wished to skirt.
    “You made her a hat,” the older gentleman said suddenly.
    “Beg pardon?”
    “Charlotte. You made her a funny sort of hat, for flying with that bubble of hers. She reports that it is perfect. Said she could see the crumbs in my beard from a mile in the sky. And she told me not to use your title, because you wouldn’t like it.”
    Dexter fought an urge to punch at the air in jubilation. He had known,
known
she would like his modifications.
    “Helmet, sir. It was a helmet. I’m very pleased it met her requirements adequately.”
    The portly Viscount was watching him with eyes that missed nothing. “She was very happy about that funny hat, Hardison. Happier, in fact, than I’ve seen her since her husband died. When you meet with her to discuss all this, as I suspect you will arrange to do as soon as I depart, you could do worse than to ask her about his death. Get it out of the way.”
    “I’ll try to remember. Sir, it’s my understanding that the Treaty of Calais was supposed to bring an end to this sort of activity. Haven’t our agents been recalled from France? And theirs from England?”
    Darmont shrugged. “I didn’t take you for a naïve man, Hardison. Perhaps I was wrong.”
    “We still have spies in France.”
    “Yes,” Darmont confirmed. “We still have spies in France. The French still have spies all over the Commonwealth, including the American Dominions. The old French government, the ousted post-royalist party who never wanted the treaty signed in the first place, have spies among the current French government, the Égalité types. Officially, of course, nobody in any of these governments knows a thing about all that. Nor do I. Officially.”
    “And the treaty?”
    “Did the treaty make you start trusting the French overnight?”
    While Dexter mulled this question over, Darmont stood and wandered over to the rear wall of Dexter’s workroom, to the one frivolous element of design he had allowed himself when converting the room from a parlor to its current purpose. A portion of unplastered stone wall several feet wide was obscured by complex layers of pistons and gears, ranging in size from a few inches to a yard across. The cogs turned, the pistons drove here and there, the whole thing seemed nearly alive with purposeful motion. Its top and bottom workings disappeared into the floor below and ceiling above, suggesting it was clearly only part of some larger mechanism. To keep the dust off, the whole thing was secured under an improbably large pane of heavy glass.
    “This is part of the original house, isn’t it? The room, I mean, not . . . this thing here.”
    “Yes, sir. The first Baron built it shortly after the Colonial Uprising. His was one of the first Dominion titles.” Those titles had secured land for a growing body of restless gentry in Britain, who were happy enough to swear new oaths of fealty to the Crown—and agree to forego the usual seats in the House of Lords, as they